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Many of the property make over shows have been sponsored by the little red telephone insurance company, this is the insurance arm of one of Britain's biggest mortgage companies. When the presenters advise people to clear some clutter, hang new curtains, and see it sell for an extra £10,000 they achieve two desirable outcomes for the mortgage lending part of their sponsors; a) they talk up the market and raise expectations, b) they ease the sale of repossessed properties.

Grand Designs is sponsored by ING, and never shows the plans that fail, journalists would do.

The current UK price boom started after the DOT.com bubble burst, and about the same time as the Equitable problems started to appear. People (we all know someone) stated their DIY pension by buying a house or two and renting it out. The boom that followed was perpetuated by the different interest groups around the property market. Like the DOT.com bubble it is perceived as a one way bet, which is what you want when saving for your retirement.

The housing market is not actually a market, where prices are controlled simply by supply and demand, many estate agencies are tied to or owned by financial institutions. This means that it is better for the owners of the estate agencies (Halifax and the others) to sell no houses, pay the agents to authorise risky loans than to mark down prices. Marking down prices will continue to encourage some of the smarter buy-to-letters to cash-in, releasing more housing stock onto the market, and risk triggering the crash.

Two actions available to Gordon to create affordable and a sustainable housing market without increasing interest rates are a) create a "walk away-leave the keys" right, so that negative equity stays with the lender rather than the borrower, b) make estate agencies separate from the financial institutions, both of these would better allow the housing market to operate properly.